10 Great Museums in Jakarta

Having a vacation in Jakarta City is not always about modern lifestyle and shopping. Who would have known that in this metropolitan city, you can find a lot of classic tourism place such as museums? Here are several interesting museums in Jakarta recommended for you to visit:

1. Fatahilah Museum

This museum is also known as Museum Sejarah Jakarta (Museum of Jakarta’s History) or Batavia Museum. The museum was built during Dutch regime in Batavia (old Jakarta). It was intended to be a City Hall, so the building has office, court room, and even prisons on the basement.

30 years after Independence Day of Indonesia, the building was inaugurated to be a Museum where you can see many objects that represent the history of Jakarta. Besides museum, the building also has several supporting facilities such as library, cafeteria, souvenir shop, and cinema. It also has a hall and foyer which you can rent to throw party.

2. National Museum of Indonesian Republic

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This is the first and the biggest museum in South-East Asia. It also has the most complete collections in Indonesia. There are more than 100,000 objects inside this museum including anthropologic statues, ancient manuscripts, artifacts, relics, and much more.

There definitely are so many things to learn here. The museum is also called Elephant Museum sometimes, due to the existence of a huge elephant statue on the front yard. The statue was a gift from King Chulalongkorn from Thailand at 1871.

3. Art Mon Decor Museum

If you like art and know how to value it, then you must visit this museum in northern Jakarta. The museum showcases many modern arts including paintings, sculptures, and any much more. These artistic masterpieces were made by Indonesia’s artist; from the maestro like Affandi, Srihadi Soedarsono, Sunaryo, etc, to the new young generation ones.

But do not worry, even if they were still young, their pieces of arts are also exquisite. The museum has its own concept for every exhibition which is changed every three months. Therefore, the guest will be more excited and look forward to come again to this museum. To enter this museum, you do not even need to pay at all. It is free of charge!

4. Wayang Museum

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Wayang is one of the most popular kinds of art in Indonesia. Therefore our government decided that we need a special museum to showcase it. The building was actually a church from Dutch colonialism built in 1630. The building had been broken due to earthquake on 1808.

Later on, after Indonesia had their Independence, the building was restructured. It is then used as a Wayang Museum. The collections at this museum are including more than 4,000 wayangs in many kinds such as leather wayang, doll wayang, masks, and much more. Every second and third week of the month, the museum holds a wayang show for free!

5. Museum of Transportation

As named, the museum is intended to showcase the history of transportation development in Indonesia. In there, you can see many old and new vehicles ever existed in Indonesia. The models are displayed in many forms such as real stuffs, pictures, replicas, and dioramas. The museum is divided to three zones; land transportation, water transportation, and air transportation.

6. Bank Indonesia Museum

Bank of Indonesia held an important role for Indonesia’s Independence. This museum can show you how much it affected the nations, ever since the concept of money was first introduced to Indonesian people in many areas. Inside the museum, you can also see many forms of money in Indonesia before we have “Rupiah”. The most interesting objects are numismatic moneys from ancient kingdoms in Indonesia.

7. Museum Sumpah Pemuda

Sumpah Pemuda means The Youth’s Oath. The museum showcases how Indonesian young people were struggling for Indonesia’s Independence during Dutch and Japan colonialism. Inside the museum, you can see dioramas, media, and quotes from their actions back then. One of the most famous quote is “Earning Independence of Indonesia is the most noble obligation for Every Young People of Indonesia”. The museum was built by the Government to memorize their struggle and to encourage Indonesian youth nowadays to achieve great things as these youth in the past.

8. Museum of Insects

As named, the museum indeed displays many kinds of insects ever exist in Indonesia. What makes it really interesting is that you can see not only dead animals on transparent box, but you can also see the living ones on their Butterfly Park.

It was called Butterfly Park because most of the insects they display are butterflies. But they also have a lot of any other insects such as dragonfly, bees, grashopers, beetles, and much more. For animal lovers, you do not need to be worried about the animals because they were treated properly. Some species that are already rare even got special treatment to keep them exist.

9. Basuki Abdullah Museum

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Basuki Abdullah is probably the best painter ever lived from Indonesia. During his life from 1915 to 1993, he had made a lot of adorable paintings which are famous around the world. This two-story building was used to be Basuki Abdullah’s house, so you could feel how his life was.

At the second floor, you can see many acknowledgements from famous people aboard including Queen Elizabeth II’s request to visit Dutch and join an international painting competition. Abdullah won that competition and his painting is displayed on the Dutch Royal Palace.

10. Asmat Museum

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Asmat is an ethnic tribe in Papua, Indonesia. The tribe is famous internationally for creating many stunning wooden. The museum consists of three building which having its own concept. The first one is Human and Their Environment, where you can see the traditional environment of Asmat through objects and dioramas.

The second one is Human and Their Culture, where you can see traditional and classic stuffs made by Asmat people such as traditional weapons, masks, musical instruments, etc. The last one is Human and Their Creativity where you can see many contemporary-yet-still-traditional pieces of art from Asmat, such as creative cravings, interior decorations, furniture, etc.

Isn’t it interesting? So, next time you visit Jakarta, spare your time for a historical vacation to one of these museums. Or maybe, you can even visit those all. I bet you will have fun and learn something interesting.